Super Bowl tickets a goal too far for most Seahawks fans

The last time the Seahawks went to the Super Bowl, 41-year-old Debra Hindman decided to buy tickets while she was attending the NFC Championship Game.

But the season-ticket holder said unless she wins tickets through a lottery, she won’t go to the Super Bowl this year, since attending the game in the New York area will be more expensive than the 2006 game in Detroit.

Unless you have money to burn, going to the Super Bowl is, at best, only a dream for many Seahawks fans.

For that dream to have a chance of coming true, the Seahawks first need to win the NFC Championship Game against the San Francisco 49ers this Sunday at CenturyLink Field.

Although the Seahawks ticket office has not confirmed how any Super Bowl tickets would be allocated, Gene Hushak, the president of the Sea Hawkers, the team’s booster club, said season-ticket holders were placed into a lottery in 2006.

The number of times a fan’s name was placed into the lottery was based on the number of years the fan had been a season-ticket holder multiplied by the number of seats held.

Tony Rossman, a season-ticket holder and president of the Renton chapter of the Sea Hawkers, said a customer-relationship representative emailed him in December and told him a weighted lottery would occur this year that would take “tenure” into consideration. However, details of the lottery were unavailable, according to Rossman’s email exchange with the representative.

In 2006, the Seahawks sold
11,800 tickets through a lottery, with a pair of tickets costing $1,240.

Other options for tickets to the Feb. 2 Super Bowl at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., would likely be even more expensive.

Fans can try their luck in the online ticket-resale market, though available figures do not seem promising. According to the NFL Ticket Exchange, end-zone tickets were going for $2,836 each Tuesday.

On StubHub, the cheapest ticket was about the same, with the most inexpensive upper end-zone ticket going for about $2,596 as of Tuesday afternoon.

The NFL also has a limited number of “white packages” available. In these, fans can have access to “Insider Extras” and can choose to pay either for tickets or for a combo deal that also includes three-day hotel accommodations.

Prices for white packages that do not include hotels currently range from $4,899 to $7,299 per person, according to nflonlocation.com.

These options might make dreams come true for some Seahawks fans, but Hindman already has a backup plan: one great Super Bowl party.